I adore books. I read constantly, at least a book every 2 weeks. I love learning and exploring worlds I've never seen and all the wonder that a new book can hold. So, when Amy Palko announced her Summer Read-along of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, I jumped right in. This is my first time reading it, and I have gotten to page 284. Even though I've seen the movie and know the ending, the book is so beautiful that I find it harder and harder to put it down.

There are many messages in this book about love and time and memory, but the passage that I keep coming to over and over again is this: "I am having a hard time, in my tiny bedroom studio, in the beginning of my married life. The space that I can call mine, that isn’t full of Henry, is so small that my ideas have become small. I am like a caterpillar in a cocoon of paper; all around me are sketches for sculptures, small drawings that seem like moths fluttering against the windows, beating their wings to escape from this tiny space. I make maquettes, tiny sculptures that are rehearsals for huge sculptures. Every day the ideas come more reluctantly, as though they know I will starve them and stunt their growth. At night I dream about color, about submerging my arms into vats of paper fibre. I dream about miniature gardens I can’t set foot in because I am a giantess. .... The magic I can make is small magic now, deferred magic. Every day I work, but nothing ever materializes."

I feel a great connection to Clare here, because I too have seen my dreams and creations shrink to fit the space I had. For the last two years, my husband and I have been in a very small space. We have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. We have no privacy because my parent's pool is in our kitchen and no separate space to get away from each other. I am a creative, artsy craftsy person and I love to make things with my hands. While we've been here, I haven't been creating or drawing or painting or feeding my soul in all those wonderful ways. I have felt myself receding away piece by piece. My inner muse was in hibernation and I was just going through the motions of life, without much real connection or meaning for myself.

In the beginning of this year, my sleeping giant woke up and I have spent this year growing and developing myself again. I have been taking art courses online and learning to create mandalas and writing again. I have found life coaching and a way to fulfill my purpose by helping other women to rekindle their own passions as I've rediscovered mine. I am leaping out into the great unknown to make my dreams come true. I am dancing again and dreaming big dreams and creating my best life. I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she eats the cake and keeps getting bigger and bigger. I look at the full moon and feel my own expansion growing to match. We are looking for a house of our own so that I can continue to grow and expand and flourish in a sacred room of my own. But even without that room, I refuse to let my magic be diminished. And I encourage you to make sure your magic isn't squashed either. The world deserves our biggest and brightest dreams.